For all the controversy surrounding diversity in Hollywood, take notice. Disney is setting director Ava DuVernay (Selma) to direct feature adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s adored 1963 novel A Wrinkle in Time. Jennifer Lee, co-director and co-write of the mega-successful, Oscar-winning animated hit Frozen will pen the screenplay.
This is potentially a very big deal coming in at the Mouse House. A Wrinkle in Time is a fantasy adventure set around a teenage girl whose father (a scientist with governmental ties) goes missing. The girl goes on a mission to find her father and finds a heap of adventure along the way. The classic novel won the prestigious Newbery Medal. The film, if all goes according to plan, will find director DuVernay working on a grander scale than ever before. She previously directed the indies I Will Follow and the Sundance award winning Middle of Nowhere. In 2014, she directed the Oscar-winning Selma, a Civil Rights Movement drama that centered around Martin Luther King’s historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama- that film (made on a $20 million budget made over $60 million worldwide).
If A Wrinkle in Time weren’t enough to keep DuVernay busy for a while, the director (who started working in the film industry as a publicist) is also developing the science fiction film Intelligent Life which is set to star Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years Slave). That film centers around a UN worker’s encounters with a beautiful woman…who may be an alien. Intelligent Life comes from a screenplay by Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow and co-writer Derek Connolly (and Indie Spirit winner for the indie comedy Safety Not Guaranteed).
It’s not yet certain which film DuVernay will make first as start dates for either haven’t been confirmed. We will stay tuned for the latest developments.
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